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  • Censorship: This is How it Begins

    Spain’s government is drafting a law that bans the photographing and filming of members of the police. The Interior Ministry assures they are not cracking down on freedom of expression, but protecting the lives of law enforcement officers.  …

    ­The new Citizen Safety Law will prohibit “the capture, reproduction and editing of images, sounds or information of members of the security or armed forces in the line of duty,” said the director general of the police, Ignacio Cosido. He added that this new bill seeks to “find a balance between the protection of citizens’ rights and those of security forces.”

    The dissemination of images and videos over social networks like Facebook will also be punishable under the legislation.

    via RT.

    “Oh it could never happen here.”  That’s what the Spanish used to think.  Now look at them.

    Note the language of the law. It’s the Citizen Safety Law.  Bullshit!  It has nothing to do with the safety of citizens.  It about making sure that people do not record the unlawful acts of their own government.

    In case you don’t know, Spain is going through a tough time right now because for years and years they spend more money than the had.  They go too far into debt and now they have to pay the bills.  The austerity measures are not very popular.  So people have been taking to the streets.  The government don’t like that.

    Keep this in mind as we start having to pay down our own debt.  Something is going to have to give… People are going to take to the streets.  There may very well be some violent confrontations between people and police.  Those confrontations need to be public.  Not limited to what the government, a/k/a The Ministry of Truth, tells us what happened.

    It can happen there… it can happen here.  Prepare yourself.

  • Obama Wrong: US Troops to Remain in Afghanistan

    Despite repeated pleas from US President Barack Obama to conclude the war in Afghanistan by the end of 2014, a leading official with the State Department tells reporters this week that the United States is readying plans that will leave boots on the ground for the unforeseeable future, perhaps long after the Obama-insisted deadline comes and goes.

    Marc Grossman, the State Department’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, reportedly told the press on Tuesday that upcoming negotiations in the region will iron out how and who will be left overseas after 2014 to allegedly engage in counterterrorism efforts and assist Afghans with military training.  …

    Grossman adds that the State Dept. has already held meetings to discuss “how we will manage our forces going forward in Afghanistan,” and now must begin negotiations to figure out a number of factors, including who and how many troops will be left behind.via RT.

    Is anyone really surprised?

    We need to simply bring everyone home.  Now.  Just pick-up and pull-out.  The entire country has been a war zone for the last 40-50 years; actually since the dawn of time itself.  We simply do not belong there.  It’s serving no national foreign policy objective.

    Al-Qaida just moves the base of operation into Africa and they use the Afghan war as a reason to bring more young loyalist into the fold.  Our actions there are counter-productive.  It’s not worth a single human life to try to change the geo-politics of that region.

  • Florida’s Bigoted New Education (Union) Standards

    Asian students should be the smartest, and teachers will expect the least from blacks.  That’s the case in Florida, at least, where the Board of Education has agreed to pass a revised plan that outlines new academic goals for students based on race.  …

    Under the approved strategic revision, 90 percent of Asian students, 88 percent of whites, 81 percent of Hispanics and 74 percent of blacks will be expected to read at or above their applicable reading grade levels in future tests. For math scores, they expect 92 percent of Asians, 80 percent of Hispanics and 74 percent of blacks to excel, suggesting that some races warrant a lower bar than others.

    Patrick Franklin, president and CEO of the Urban League of Palm Beach County, opposes the revision, telling the Sun Sentinel, “All children should be held to high standards and for them to say that for African-Americans the goal is below other students is unacceptable.”

    via RT.

    What kind of nonsense is this?  Thank you Patrick Franklin for standing up and demanding equal educational expectations for African-American children.

    Did Florida just accept the premise of The Bell Curve?  Is that where we are today?

    Can you imagine someone said, well it’s ok to pay black people less than white people or Asian people?  Or that black people only need to work 6 or 7 hours a day instead of 8?

    We need to work on treating all peoples equally.  Isn’t the goal to try to ignore race — not call it out?  This goofiness is only going to set back race relations 20-30 years.

    It’s such a stupid idea that one has to wonder why it was put forth and passed…

    And while educators are hoping to have higher test scores coming in across the board, race and ethnicity play a deciding factor in what’s expected from Sunshine State students in the years to come.

    “Educators” for those that don’t know means “Union Teachers.”  These are the people who are fighting to limit any performance based evaluations.

    Florida’s Republican governor think this is a dumb idea:

    Schools’ expectations should be color blind.  As a nation, we have rejected police use of racial profiling on the streets, by what rational do we now accept it from educators in the classroom.

    Indeed Governor. Indeed.

    The take-away here is that Democrat Teachers’ Unions are racist.

  • Connecticut Dem Jokes Promises Vote Corruption

    Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch is at it again. The Democrat who presided over a 2010 vote casting and counting scandal in the tight race for governor was caught on video Friday guaranteeing Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Christopher Murphy a big result in the state’s largest city–even if it takes days to count.

    Bridgeport provided a crucial and dubious margin of victory to Democratic and Working Families Governor Dannel P. Malloy in 2010 amidst unprecedented chaos at the city’s polling places. The 2010 Bridgeport assault on democracy included photocopied ballots, altered hours at polling places, a mysterious bag of votes and Finch’s abuse of the city’s emergency notification system to increase turnout on Election Day.

    Murphy, locked in a dead heat with Republican Linda McMahon, needs the grimy Bridgeport Guarantee. He got it from Finch on Friday while visiting small businesses in the poverty-wracked city. A laughing Finch boasts even if it takes a couples of days to get the results,”You can be guaranteed you’re going to get the vote.” Two years after the 2010 fiasco, it remains no laughing matter to the rest of Connecticut.

    via The Weekly Standard.

    Video at the link for those of you who say “it didn’t happen that way.”

     

  • Secrets Of the College Admissions Office

    1) It sucks to be a middle class white applicant.

    2) East Asians can be disadvantaged too.

    3) Athletes bring down the quality of the class. So do legacies, but not nearly as much.

    4) Early admission is less competitive, despite what the College claims.

    5) Most college essays are too boring.

    via Business Insider.

    Tell me something we don’t already know, right?

  • MSM a/k/a The Ministry of Truth vs. Romney

    This (sadly) is not a spoof:
    [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFrB1-cD2Zc?rel=0]

  • Real Commercial or a Spoof?

    I honestly don’t know.

    [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ9Twgif9gM?rel=0]

  • The Fiscal Entitlement Cliff

    The U.S. Census Bureau says 108 million Americans live in households where at least one person participates in a means-tested program. We estimate that 80 million are the primary recipients….

    Since the president took office:

    • Medicaid is up from 46.9 million to 56 million people.

    • Disability beneficiaries are up from 7.5 million to 8.8 million.

    • The food stamp program has grown from 32 million Americans to 47 million.

    Add to that 80 million beneficiaries 40 million Americans age 65 or older on Social Security and Medicare (9 million of the 49 million on Medicare, including some under age 65, also receive means-tested benefits).

    That 120 million does not include the numerous smaller entitlement programs.

    Put them all together, and a number approaching half of the country participates in an entitlement program.

    Now add in the 16 million new Medicaid beneficiaries, thanks to ObamaCare, plus an estimated 12 million people who enter the health insurance exchanges by 2014, where most will receive federal subsidies.

    The budget implications of these programs are huge. For fiscal 2012, America spent $2.2 trillion of its $3.7 trillion budget on entitlement programs — $400 billion less than the $2.6 trillion in gross annual revenues.

    Oh, and interest on the federal debt was $220 billion.

    Thus, the cost of entitlement programs plus interest on the debt are nearly equal to total federal revenues today.

    Virtually everything else the government does is with borrowed, or printed, money.

    via Investors.com.

    I realize that this is all a little hard to understand for a lot of people.  So to put it in easy to understand terms:

    This is like living on a credit card — spending 50% more money than you actually earn — and then dying and leaving the bill for your kids.

  • CTA Scam Sucks Millions in Taxpayer Funds

    It is after all the Chicago way.

    The CTA has potentially inflated by up to $150 million the federal taxpayer money it received since as far back as 1982 by “fraudulently over-reporting” the number of miles CTA buses travel while in service, according to a new report by a little-known watchdog group.

    In its report, titled “A bus tour of Chicago-style fraud,” Washington-based Cause of Action alleged that CTA officials reaped millions in extra federal money that the agency was not entitled to by improperly including “deadhead,” or out-of-service bus miles, along with funding-eligible revenue bus miles when applying for money from the Federal Transit Administration.  …

    But Cause of Action, which said it based its findings on “insider audit information” from six years ago, said the CTA likely continues to get away with its inaccurate mileage reporting, with the knowledge of the U.S. government, because of the transit agency’s political connections stretching from Chicago to Washington.

    It cited the clout of Valerie Jarrett, who is senior adviser to President Barack Obama and also a former chairwoman of the CTA (1995 to 2003), and Robert Rivkin, general counsel at the U.S. Department of Transportation. From 2001 to 2004, Rivkin was general counsel at the CTA.

    Officials at Cause of Action said they brought the matter to the attention of the U.S. Department of Transportation inspector general, the U.S. attorney general and Congress, but no action was taken.

    via Chicago Tribune.

    Surprise Surprise Surprise!!

    The good citizens of Chicago are naturally shocked and appalled that Valerie Jarrett and other stooges of The Machine have engaged in taxpayer fraud. Shocked and appalled.

    This sounds like a Qui Tam lawsuit in the making.  Someone going to get on that?

     

  • Google Data Centers — Photos and Comments

    Very cool photo tour of some of the stuff behind the scenes at Google data centers.